


Some Measure of Peace

by hops



Series: Our Endless Numbered Days [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Idk what to tag this as, post-IPRE pre-TAZ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: (BIG SPOILERS for ep 66)"You never saw her, but she would check in on you from time to time. When things were most difficult for her, it brought her some measure of peace to see you."Lucretia visits Ravensroost.





	Some Measure of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I can't believe Magcretia is canon on the day of our Lord, June 29, 2017.  
> Anyway.  
> Thanks to @lesbianlaracrovt for always enabling me and listening to me cry for, actually, really, hours every other Thursday. You're the best.  
> And shout out to like all 5 of us shipping Magcretia.... I'm so here for it.  
> If you wanna talk TAZ HMU on tumblr @maegnus or on twitter @luptaako!!

 

It was the hardest for her, going back to Ravensroost.  

She'd procured some degree of anonymity after initially getting Magnus set up with a studio in a place she knew he would thrive. She'd spoken only to the previous owner of the property and the necessary town officials to get him into a home. And most of all, she had aged twenty years in an impossibly short time, due to her time in Wonderland. In that regard, she was safe; it wasn't being recognized by those people that she worried about. It wasn't even being recognized by  _Magnus_ that she worried about. She knew that those memories were long gone from his mind, bottled away with the Voidfish that she'd fed their century, their love, to, even if he could recognize her in her older age. It was the weight of her own loneliness that worried her most. Judging from the way she felt when even  _thinking_ about Magnus, she knew seeing him would just be twisting the knife that lay, self-inflicted, beneath her heart.  

But, she worried. She'd visited Merle and seen him serene, his toes in the sand. She'd visited Taako and his traveling stagecoach, where she'd watched him from the crowd as he wow'ed all of the people who had come out just to see him. They were so  _happy._ Even if it meant her loneliness in exchange for their joy, she would give that to them, every single time.  

She'd heard that Magnus had met an incredible woman. Caring, intelligent, kind. With every bone in her body she was  _happy_ for him. She wanted him to have the normalcy they were never able to have.  

But god, did she miss him.  

Quietly and without companions, she stole away from her tireless work for a few days and made the journey to Ravensroost. Shrouded in a cloak, she was anonymous. She rented a room at the inn and pampered herself with a bottle of wine for her trouble. She allowed herself a glass as she sat at a table at the far side of the bar. She used her time to write of her travels in her notebook, noting the friendly nature of the people who came and went at the inn, the way they all seemed so jovial. So... normal. It seemed like something out of a storybook. Her heart hammered in response as she mulled over how well Magnus would fit in here. He was always making friends with any and all folk, especially those who were kind.  

It'd been quite some time since she'd seen him last. She'd thrown herself into her work, into looking for the relics, to no avail. She was older now, aged twenty years more than any of her friends, her family, had. She felt the difference. Her joints ached, her hair had greyed, and she just felt... tired. Alone. She had been single-handedly carrying the weight of a century, a hundred blackened worlds, the memories of her friends, a love she had to give away, and the impending return of the hunger all by herself. Where could she put it down?  

She reclined in the wooden chair and sipped her wine. She deserved a break. Not that visiting your lost love in his new life while he doesn't even remember who you are was a  _break_ , but it brought her peace to know that he was happy. Magnus had earned that happiness.  

She set out at mid-morning the next day after a surprisingly restful sleep upstairs at the inn, and an excellent rustic breakfast at the tavern downstairs. She donned her cloak and pulled the hood over her cropped, silver hair, and set out for the Hammer and Tongs. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she walked. Deep within her, she knew that she wasn't ready to see him again. But she missed him. She  _needed_ him right now, more than she ever had since letting him go. She couldn't speak to him, but just knowing that he was okay, that he was happy, that all of this weight and this pain would be  _worth something_ in the end... That was enough for her.  

Part of her was thankful the Voidfish had eaten his memory. Particularly his memories of the hardest years. The years when she'd died early on and he struggled with his loneliness. The years when they'd fought long and hard, for nothing. That last and final year, that betrayal that she'd never meant for him to see. It comforted her to know that he wouldn't remember the tears in her eyes as she turned to see him in the door as she fed that final journal to Fisher, to the Voidfish they had come to care for and love so much, together. He wouldn't remember the way she'd guided him to the floor, telling him it would be okay, that it would all be over soon, that they'd be together again before he knew it. He wouldn't remember how she said, "I love you, Magnus," as his world had spun into static unconsciousness. She was grateful he didn't have to relive that memory, daily, like she did.  

The Voidfish cried in his absence. She did too, for a long time.  

The other part of her grieved for their memories. For the love that she might never get back. And now, he'd found a love that filled him with such joy... She could never take that from him. She had no desire to. She only wanted him to be happy.  

But the small, festering, selfish part of her simply longed for those memories to return to his mind. All the late nights they'd spent on their backs, looking up into a hundred different night skies, counting endless stars. All the cups of tea shared, all the meals eaten together, all the books read aloud. All the stolen kisses in private. Every reunion after every premature death. Every dance at every festival, every secretive smile, every time she'd ruffled her hand through his hair. All the promises of protection, of comfort, of love. He'd been her home for one hundred years. Her best friend, her confidante, her lover. In her most trying times and weakest moments, she wished for him back by her side, telling her that he believed in her, that they'd be okay, that she was doing the right thing. She needed him. She just needed to see his face, just for a moment, and she'd be okay again.  

Her heart ached as she paced down the cobblestone streets of Ravensroost. Just a few more storefronts and she'd be--  

And there it stood, its old iron sign looking the same as it did the first day she'd come to the town. The Hammer and Tongs. She froze in her place, disrupting the other pedestrians making their way in the town with their baskets and barrels of goods. She pressed herself to the stone wall beside her and took a deep, steadying breath. The stones felt cool beneath her fingertips.  

She pushed herself to walk the rest of the way down the road to the carpentry shop, fists curled in determination. Her heart felt as though it may burst from all the weight of her grief, of her anxiety, of her love. Her thoughts were drowned out with only his name.  _Magnus. Magnus. Magnus. I love you, Magnus._ Her last words to him as he'd writhed in distress from the static, murmuring, "no, no," with those wide, tearful eyes.  

What was it, those statues had predicted so long ago?  

 _A necessary betrayal._  

Magnus.  

She looked in the window, legs barely holding her up from how much she was trembling, and there he was. Just a little older now. New scars, but no black eye. As he looked down at his carving in his hands, he looked  _happy._ Fond of his work. He didn't look tired or worn down by a century of outrunning the Hunger, as she'd grown to know him. He looked just as happy as the night before the departure of the Star Blaster. That night he'd gotten into some trouble at the bar, she'd noted in her journal, but afterwards? She'd never seen a person laugh so hard, with so much joy. That was the first time she'd felt the warmth in her stomach at the sight of him. The unshelling of a thousand butterflies in her lungs. The dizziness in her mind that she would later understand to be love itself.  

His black eye had become a symbol of relief. Of another chance at saving the world. And now, there were no more black eyes. No more new cycles. It was do or die. Do, or lose everything they'd worked for. And, lose this new life that she'd crafted for each of the remaining members of her famiy.  

As she watched him work, that same feeling of warmth came over her. Her legs stopped shaking. She touched the glass with her fingertips. He was  _okay._ He was happy. He was here. And there, across the room, was Julia, rifling through a tall stack of what Lucretia guessed to be orders for the shop.  

Her eyes filled with happy tears. Tears of absolute relief. Joy. Elation.  

Magnus looked up at her and met her gaze, his knife slowing to a stop. Lucretia's heart skipped a beat as she looked at him.  _I love you, Magnus,_ she said with her heart, praying that somehow it would reach his. As he turned away to look at his wife, she turned and continued down the street, wiping the tears that had been streaming down her face.  

* * *

 

Magnus looked up from his carving to see the cloaked woman standing outside the window. In his chest, his heart inexplicably swelled, feeling drawn to the stranger. When he tried to focus on the feeling, his mind clouded with static.  

He placed the carving down on the bench before him, trying to swallow the strange lump that had risen in his throat.  

Julia's voice pulled him from the stranger's gaze. "Who's that?" She asked from across the room, still mulling through the stack of papers she'd been working through.  

"I don't know."  

As Magnus turned back to the window, she was gone.  


End file.
